“To be American, to be Western, was almost the same as committing religious apostasy.”

Imagine watching your parents experience the bipolar world of being a new Muslim in the 70’s. You were made to feel that if you didn’t change your name you were not Muslim enough, if you didn’t sport a thobe or roll up your pants or all of a sudden speak with a funky new accent, there was something wrong with your deen. But damn if you couldn’t help getting down to Stevie Wonder Saturday mornings while mopping the floor.

Lesson learned from my childhood: you can never fully be in one world or the other. Today I strive to prove that lesson wrong. Some days I don’t think I ‘ll ever find my way and other days I think I almost have it.

Also, keep in mind that it is not only an internal feeling of having acquired some authenticity that Black people search for their deen where the accents are thickest and the beards fullest. The racist and classist attitudes of the Muslims surrounding them went a long way in promoting their view of an “authentic” Islam.

I just had a conversation with an older man a couple of months ago who was outraged by Imam Zaid’s “behaviour” as he was speaking. ” He was speaking like these people on tv…. He should not move like that when he is speaking…” This man was of course from a culture where the Imams are I guess Imam-like than our beloved Imam Zaid.

I trust very few authorities to have the best interests of Black people in mind, or the countless number of converts and their children living in the West.

That being said I think we need to develop a strong community base from which to nurture those among us who would lead. Before we do that though, we need to be aware of who we are as people, what we can bring to the Islamic culture, what we can bring to the world as a whole.
We have to have a stong sense of identity and self-worth.
Build the individual and you have built a nation.

I could go on for days. But I won’t. I hope I gaven’t offended. This is a subject that hits very close to home and brings up a lot of stuff.

One day I will build us all commune where we can feed chickens and follow rainbows…. until then we strive

Irisblue

You may be right in some regards. I have no doubt that for many of them or for myself in that time period, it was for those things. What they/we deemed as anti-materialism. Anti-establishment. But what we were trying to get at, and I also think this is part of Dr. Jackson’s point, is a dignified existance. Part of that was also based on our [unconcious?] struggle against white supremacy. We wanted to dress like bedouins because the white man had no authority on bedouins. We could not be ridiculed because we had or were trying to have, authority on that. And of course, in the end, this is a fabricated notion – a mythos of sorts. For the bedouin was most certainly materialistic, albeit in a much more existential kind of way. Furthermore, this is ultimately tragic in that you have a group people who reject their own history and attempt a sort of religious/cultural skin graft to attain legitimacy. This is a great part of what Sherman Jackson talks about in his book, Islam and the Blackamerican, and many of his other lectures. Thanks for the comments.

real interesting thoughts. especially the notion of being a bedouin in urban areas. i think that particular draw has to do with the offering of a cogent world-view, in which all things seem to fit a neat pattern. in which honor doesn’t revolve around material or worldly success but in your interactions with your fellow man. as such, the city-as-desert analogy gives to everyone who feels on the fringe of worldly power a sense of brotherhood. the fact that you can add and say “for 1400 years this has been going on elsewhere” only makes it that much more tangible.

good post.

Do you know if he came out with new articles/books that address these issues? Jazakallah!